Big-hitting West Indians were all the rage and pugnacious 30-something openers very much out of fashion as the Hundred draft ended with Jason Roy and David Warner among the high-profile players to go unclaimed.
Roy followed a dismal average of 8.50 in 2022 with a figure of 17.11 last year, prompting Oval Invincibles to opt against retaining him, and with his participation in the tournament likely to be affected by his commitment to Major League Cricket in the US no other side considered him worth the risk. Warner had been signed by Southern Brave before the inaugural Hundred season in 2021 but after pulling out of that tournament went unsold in 2022 and proved no more popular on this occasion.
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Instead five of the seven men’s first-round picks were used on players from the West Indies, whose bountiful stocks of box-office batters were greedily plundered.
Last season the Hundred overlapped with the Caribbean Premier League, limiting the number of their players who were available, but with the CPL this year not starting until 28 August teams tucked in. Andrew Flintoff, the new coach of Northern Superchargers, who finished bottom last season, had the first pick and set the tone by using it on Nicholas Pooran, while London Spirit brought in Andre Russell and Shimron Hetmyer, Trent Rockets signed Rovman Powell and Southern Brave picked Kieron Pollard and, later, another West Indian in the left-arm spinner Akeal Hosein.
Manchester Originals, runners‑up last year, made trend-bucking and comparatively leftfield picks in Sikandar Raza, the Zimbabwean spin-bowling all‑rounder, and the Afghanistan seamer Fazalhaq Farooqi, who a few hours earlier had been signed by Nottinghamshire for this year’s T20 Blast.
The reigning champions, Oval Invincibles, had to watch 18 players get picked by rivals before they had their first chance to get involved, whereupon they brought in Dawid Malan as a direct replacement for Roy.
Mark Wood, who because of injury or workload management has yet to play a game in the competition, also went unsold, as did Babar Azam, the Pakistan captain – it was a better night for Pakistani fast bowlers, with Naseem Shah going to Birmingham Phoenix and Shaheen Shah Afridi returning to Welsh Fire. Daryl Mitchell, the New Zealand all-rounder who was one of the most in-demand players at this year’s IPL auction, eventually going to Chennai Super Kings for £1.3m, was also left on the shelf.
The controversial tournament’s fourth season starts on 23 July when Invincibles play Birmingham Phoenix in a double-header with their women’s teams.
Southern Brave, the women’s champions, start their campaign in another double-header, against London Spirit, the following day. The final will be played at Lord’s on 18 August, with all games broadcast live on the BBC and Sky.
The men’s draft was preceded by selections for the women’s competition, in which the first real surprise came with the first pick, which Phoenix used to sign the England wicketkeeper Amy Jones rather than any of the available international superstars, whose numbers had been swollen by the decision to lift the top salary from last year’s £31,250 to £50,000 (the men’s salaries again topped out at £125,000).
Ben Sawyer, the Phoenix coach, then took Richa Ghosh, another wicketkeeper, with his second pick and, after breaking the chain with the spinner Katie Levick, Seren Smale, yet another wicketkeeper-batter, with their fourth.
Both Jones and Levick were in the Phoenix squad that finished bottom of the table last year but their squad should also be boosted by the belated arrival of Ellyse Perry, the great Australian all-rounder fresh from winning the Women’s Premier League with Royal Challengers Bangalore, who they had previously retained despite her pulling out of last year’s tournament for personal reasons.
Their decision to go with Jones allowed Manchester Originals, who had the second pick, to sign Beth Mooney, the world’s top-ranked T20 batter – and, later, the spinner Sophie Molineux – and London Spirit to bring in Meg Lanning, the brilliant Australia captain, who joins her England counterpart, Heather Knight, at Lord’s. If West Indians were all the rage in the men’s draft in the women’s it was
Australians, who made up four of the first-round picks with Trent Rockets picking the all-rounder Ash Gardner and Annabel Sutherland going to Northern Superchargers.
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